Congress could clear Shah nomination tonight
The Rajiv Shah nomination for USAID administrator could clear the Senate later today or tomorrow. Hill sources tell The Cable that the offices of Senate leaders Harry Reid, D-NV, and Mitch McConnell, R-KY, are working on an agreement to confirm Shah through unanimous consent. The action could come tonight but the Senate is also doing ...
The Rajiv Shah nomination for USAID administrator could clear the Senate later today or tomorrow. Hill sources tell The Cable that the offices of Senate leaders Harry Reid, D-NV, and Mitch McConnell, R-KY, are working on an agreement to confirm Shah through unanimous consent. The action could come tonight but the Senate is also doing business Saturday and Sunday as well.
Usually how these things work is that Reid’s office puts together a package of leftover business before any break and sends it around to see if there are any objections. If not, Reid announces the items during his “wrap up” soliloquy on the Senate floor and the items are agreed to without a formal vote.
In this case, sources said that McConnell’s office has no real objection to clearing the Shah nomination tonight, but that the details of the overall package of things in the agreement haven’t been signed off on by everybody. But the feeling is that this could get worked out before the Senate closes down in a few hours. Stay tuned…
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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